The Lessons that Stayed

“I am not well. I want to go to rehab.”

Aaron* said those words at 17, but it was not the first time he had asked for help.

He had grown up in a stable family. At school, though, he was often in trouble. Bullying, anger and fights became part of his teenage years, and his family struggled to know how to help him. He started smoking cannabis at 14 and found that being high gave him an escape from how he felt inside.

At 15, Aaron entered a residential programme for young people with severe behavioural and social challenges. He asked to go to rehab then, but was told no.

After leaving the programme, he lived with different families. In one home, heavy drinking was part of daily life and Aaron began drinking heavily too. “Sometimes I’d black out really quickly,” he says.

By 17, Aaron was living on the streets. “I stole food and alcohol, shoplifted every day just to survive. I needed to drink and I needed to eat,” he recalls. He had become dependent on alcohol and was suffering from severe depression.

Aaron knew he’d had enough of the way he was living and told his probation officer that he needed to go to rehab. They supported his decision. “That was a decision for me, you know? Not imposed on me by somebody else. That was me going: ‘this is not working for me’.”

Aaron was accepted into Odyssey at just 18. He first arrived at Te Wairua Royal Oak, which supports people experiencing both mental distress and challenges with alcohol or other drugs. At the time he did not think it was the right place for him because he was not taking medication. Looking back, he understands something he could not see then: “Just because you don’t take medication doesn’t mean you’re really well.”

At first, Aaron wanted to leave Odyssey altogether. Instead, he stayed and moved to the youth residential programme. Later, he moved to the Adult Residence. Going from a small house of young people to a much larger community was another adjustment.

“It was a big culture shock and very different,” he says. “They were quite direct and blunt in their delivery and their therapeutic groups and stuff like that. Just going from a house of six young people to a house of 60 adults - that’s a lot!”

Life alongside other residents gave Aaron chances to practise doing things differently. He learned to raise small frustrations before they became resentments and to talk through conflict rather than react to it. He also began to notice his “black and white thinking” and question the assumptions he made when something went wrong.

Those lessons did not end when he left. Today, when what if thoughts begin to take over, he can check the facts and keep things in perspective. “There are so many learnings from my time at Odyssey that I’ve carried into my life today,” he says. “There’s still work to be done, I’m learning all the time.”

Aaron graduated from Odyssey after two years. He began drinking again after leaving and felt, at the time, that he had failed. Looking back, he sees those years at Odyssey differently: the programme gave him safety when he needed it and skills he would return to later.

Eventually, Aaron reached out for help again. He called Alcoholics Anonymous and spoke with someone who recognised what he was going through. At a meeting, he heard people talk honestly about how drinking had affected them and how they felt inside. He connected with them and began to see a different life for himself.

Today, Aaron has a job he loves, a supportive relationship, and is a loving, present father to his two children. He is studying towards his career goal of supporting other men through his work. He looks after his wellbeing, stays connected with people he trusts and knows when to seek support.

Getting here was not a straight line, but Aaron credits Odyssey with keeping him safe when he was young and showing him that help was possible. He still draws on what he learned there to navigate life today.

“I’m enjoying life and I wouldn’t give it away for anything.”

*Aaron’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.